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He was glad she wasn’t inhibited about it, feeling no need to cover up in front of him. Which would have been absurd anyway, given they’d been lovers. Nevertheless, it conceded a familiarity she might have wanted to reject in these current circumstances with hostility a strong thread in her attitude towards him.
Quin brooded over the hostility while she was out of sight in the bathroom. He didn’t really understand it. When they’d first met at the bank where they’d been employed, the sexual chemistry between them had been instant and compelling. They’d both been swept away by it. There’d been no courtship. One dinner date followed by blazing passion. It had taken enormous discipline for him not to become obsessed with her, not to lose sight of the goal he’d set himself.
Despite the cost to the financial momentum he’d been building, he’d moved ou
t of his mother’s home and rented an apartment so he and Nicole could be together as much as possible. Nicole had been happy with the arrangement. The sexual excitement had been intense and they were also highly compatible out of bed, with her understanding the pressures of trading and his being able to converse knowingly about her work in sales.
She was the only woman he’d ever lived with, the only one he’d ever wanted to live with. Being with her had always been an enormous buzz. It still was. But in the end she hadn’t been satisfied with what they had.
He couldn’t remember when she’d started agitating about meeting each other’s families. He hadn’t wanted to go there. It meant getting more tied up with Nicole than he already was and he didn’t want to think about future relationships when he hadn’t yet discharged the burden of the past. One thing at a time. He’d been adamant about simply continuing to share what they did—just the two of them—which didn’t have anything to do with their families.
He had sensed an emotional withdrawal from her—a coldness stemming, he’d thought, from not getting her own way. He hadn’t fallen in with her design for their lives, whatever that was—marriage, babies, setting up a family home. Nevertheless, she had seemed to accept that he wasn’t about to change his mind—remaining with him for two years before deciding to break off their relationship and go overseas.
He recalled her bitter claim that making money had been more important to him than she was. To Quin’s mind, the two things should not have been in conflict. Both had been important to him. But she had gone, deliberately putting so much distance between them, it wrote off any second chance with her, and since that was her choice…why did she now hate him?
Had she wanted him—expected him—to drop everything and chase after her?
He’d missed her. He’d missed her one hell of a lot. But he’d had a job to do, a vow to fulfil, and he’d driven himself to carry it through and have done with it. He was free now. His mother was back home in Argentina, welcomed into her family circle again. She’d wanted him to stay, too, but the life there had no appeal to him. Australia had become his home country.
Having returned to Sydney and established his own business, he had been feeling the need for someone to share his life with. He’d tried several attractive women, all of them falling short of satisfying him in one area or another. He hadn’t been consciously comparing them to Nicole, yet the moment he’d seen her again, he knew she was the one he had to have.
She emerged from the bathroom, coming straight to his side of the bed and handing him the packet of condoms. “You might as well get one out ready,” she said, her green eyes glittering determined purpose as she moved to sit astride him, intent on arousing his flesh with her own.
“I did mention there was no hurry, Nicole,” he reminded her, though he proceeded to extract the contraceptive device, wanting it ready when he chose to use it. “I’m happy just to talk for a while.”
“Then talk away,” she answered carelessly, moving her lower body over his in tantalising provocation.
She looked magnificent sitting there on top of him, her breasts swaying to the voluptuous roll of her hips, her long curly hair a cloud of sensual promise, shimmering against the backdrop of the spotlighted blue butterfly.
Had she positioned herself like this so it was behind her, out of her line of sight? “I’m glad you want to make love to me,” he said as a goad to revealing her thoughts.
She flicked him a veiled look, her thick lashes almost hiding—but not quite—the hot daggers behind them. “I might just be satisfying myself.”
“Then I’m glad to be of service to you.”
She raked her nails lightly down his chest, not scratching but possibly delivering a warning that the claws could be unsheathed if he pushed her too far.
Quin rather relished flirting with danger. “How long has it been since you were with a man, Nicole?” he asked, wanting his curiosity satisfied on that point. If there’d been no other since she’d left him…
“Obviously I’ve been occupied by other things,” she tossed out as though he should have realised that from the situation she had already laid out to him.
“Even as far back as two years ago?”
It stilled her for a moment. But she was quick at making the connection. “Your friend, Tony Fisher, is not as irresistible as he might think he is.”
“Most women find Tony very attractive.”
“Guess it’s a matter of personal taste.” Her eyes flashed derisively as she bent forward to kiss one of his nipples, swirling her tongue around it and sucking on it as though revelling in its taste.
If it was meant to be a powerful distraction from any further conversation, it certainly hit its mark. The sheer physical excitement of it tested his control to its limits. Only the thought that she was winning gave him the will power to remain still and keep his brain working, though he didn’t realise his breath was trapped in his chest until she lifted her mouth away. He quickly exhaled and gulped in more air as her head moved towards his other nipple.
“Did you find satisfaction in London?” he shot out, trying to pinpoint how she’d spent the years of her absence overseas.
She ignored the question, delivering the same sweet torment again, driving the desire to subject her to it until her whole body ached for the release he could give her, until she was begging for it. He had twenty-five more nights for talking. It could wait. This couldn’t. Not even for one more second.
He grabbed her waist, hurled her onto her back, rolled to pin her down under his weight. She tore at his hair as he swooped on her breasts. She kneaded his shoulders when he pushed himself down to wrap his mouth around more intimate places. Her body bucked, writhed and finally she did beg.
For a moment he hesitated over donning the condom.
